California lawmakers race to pass bills before midnight deadline

September 2, 2026 By Ashley Zavala, Daniel Macht 2 Comments

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers on Monday are facing a midnight deadline to pass new laws as the state’s legislative session comes to an end, with a few exceptions scheduled for votes on Tuesday morning.

A massive last-minute spending bill and a separate proposal related to wildfire liability will be voted on Tuesday morning.

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Among the proposed laws being tracked:

  • AB 1896 would ban federal immigration officers from working as California state employees.
  • SB 493 would allow the governor to declare a state of emergency during international conflicts involving the federal government, enabling the state attorney general to crack down on price gouging. The bill specifically targets the oil industry.
  • Two proposals, AB 2383 and SB 886, aim to regulate data centers by creating new rules for their electricity use. These bills would also require the California Public Utilities Commission to set special rates for data centers to ensure costs are not shifted to general electricity customers.

These are just a few of the hundreds of bills California lawmakers have been working on this year.

Click here to read the full article at KCRA

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California lawmakers vote to change childhood sex abuse law

September 1, 2026 By Dakota Smith Leave a Comment

SACRAMENTO — The California state Legislature voted Sunday to amend a 2019 law that extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims but was blamed for draining the coffers of municipalities and school districts.

Senate Bill 577 by John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) follows years of heated debate over the state law, which resulted in scores of lawsuits against cities, counties and schools.

Since the law was enacted, L.A. County has agreed to pay nearly $5 billion to settle more than 11,000 claims stemming from alleged sexual abuse committed by government employees in foster homes and juvenile halls.

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The bill passed by the Legislature on Sunday requires victims older than 40 to provide evidence that the public entity was aware of the misconduct that resulted in the assault and failed to take reasonable steps to avoid it.

It also states that attorneys who file fraudulent sex abuse lawsuits can be fined $25,000 per violation. The Times reported last year on nine plaintiffs who said they were paid to sue the county over sex abuse, some of whom said they were told to fabricate their claims.

Consumer attorneys, counties and victims rights groups jostled over the elements of the proposed bill over the last few months.

Lawmakers stopped short of capping payouts in the bill, a change sought by some local governments and school districts.

The legislation follows multiple attempts to change the law in recent years. Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) tried last year to increase the burden of proof for sex abuse cases, but pulled the bill after outrage from victims rights groups.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

 

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Gavin Newsom still doesn’t understand the limits of his power

September 1, 2026 By Daniel Kolkey Leave a Comment

After 7 1/2 years as governor, Gavin Newsom still does not understand the scope and limits of his gubernatorial powers.

On July 13, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued to block Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. On August 1, The Wall Street Journal reported that Governor Newsom had expressed his view that blocking the deal would adversely impact employment in California and had encouraged the California Attorney General Bonta to reach a compromise out of court.

But according to the Journal, “Bonta has been adamant that he will fight the deal in court unless Paramount agrees to structural remedies,” and recently cancelled a meeting with Paramount scheduled for August 24 to discuss settlement.

But as governor, Newsom need not complain about the suit and act as an interested observer. Instead, he could have expressly directed the Attorney General not to bring the case, and subsequent to the suit, he could have directed him to settle it and specified the terms upon which settlement should be reached.

Article V of the California Constitution provides that “[t]he supreme executive power of this State is vested in the Governor,” and more specifically, it provides that “[s]ubject to the powers and duties of the Governor, the Attorney General shall be the chief law officer of the State.” This means that the Governor could have directed the Attorney General not to bring suit or the terms for settling it.

This reading of the state Constitution is not simply supported by its plain language, but is confirmed by the California Supreme Court’s decision in People ex rel. Deukmejian v. Brown. In that case, the California Supreme Court explained that “if a conflict between the Governor and the Attorney General develops over the faithful execution of the laws of this state, the Governor retains the ‘supreme executive power’ to determine the public interest; the Attorney General may act only ‘subject to the powers’ of the Governor.” Thus, Governor Newsom could have directed the Attorney General not to bring suit or to limit the remedies sought in the suit.

But he didn’t. He preferred leaking his views instead of leading.

His misunderstanding of his powers is not a new problem either. The California Constitution also provides, “The Governor shall see that the law is faithfully executed.” But he has failed to comply with that obligation in connection with the enforcement of the death penalty.

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Specifically, despite the fact that as recently as 2016, California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed the death penalty, and instead approved Proposition 66, which retained the death penalty, Newsom issued an executive order within his first three months of taking office which has effectively become an eight-year “moratorium on the death penalty … in the form of a reprieve.”

A blanket moratorium on enforcing the death penalty on all criminal defendants, without regard to the strength of the evidence in any particular case or the trauma experienced by the victims, hardly satisfies the governor’s constitutional obligation to see that “the law is faithfully executed,” in this case, a death penalty law, enacted by the People through their initiative power, and upheld by the California Supreme Court.

Yes, the governor found a legal loophole since he has the authority to grant a reprieve under the California Constitution.   But this is ordinarily done on an individual basis. Yet, in this case, Newsom issued a reprieve to “all people sentenced to death in California,” regardless of the horrendous circumstances of any particular murder, the lost lives of innocent victims, or the California Supreme Court’s affirmance of the death penalty verdict in those cases.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

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What to know about the new California privacy law that became a flashpoint over free speech

August 31, 2026 By Lynn La Leave a Comment

Starting next year, Californians who provide legal aid, counseling or other types of assistance to immigrants will be eligible for a privacy program that keeps their addresses confidential and out of public records.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom approved this latest expansion of California’s Safe at Home program amid concern among Democratic legislators of a rise in reported harassment and threats against immigrants and immigration advocates.

Some Republican lawmakers fiercely opposed the measure, arguing that it stifles constitutional protections of a free press. The dispute came to a head last week in a verbal altercation involving Terry Schanz, the chief of staff of Democratic Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, and Nick Shirley, a conservative social media influencer and outspoken critic of the new law.

In a recording distributed widely on social media, Schanz confronted Shirley outside of the state Capitol and accused Shirley of having a small penis. Officials from the Assembly would not comment on whether Schanz could face discipline over the exchange.

The law goes into effect Oct. 1, 2027. Here’s what you need to know:

What does the privacy law do?

Under the new law — Assembly Bill 2624 — immigration support services providers, employees and volunteers can enroll in the state’s Safe at Home Program. The program lets participants, and family members in their households, keep their home addresses confidential and out of public records by providing an alternative mailing address through the California secretary of state. Participants can also vote confidentially.

The law also prohibits a “person, business, or association” from knowingly posting on the internet the address, image or personal information of program participants (as well as their spouse or child) with the intent to “incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to those individuals.”

A person found in violation of the law could be fined $4,000 in civil damages.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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California Paid 250 State Workers More Than $600,000—One Took Home $2.3 Million

August 30, 2026 By Megan Barth Leave a Comment

The top 10 CalPERS and CalSTRS pay packages alone totaled about $15 million in 2025—nearly double the inflation-adjusted total from seven years earlier

While Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration talks tax hikes and “budget gaps,” new state payroll records show California spends like Jordan Belfort with a CalPERS badge.

About 250 state employees collected more than $600,000 in total compensation in 2025, according to California State Controller data compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle. The highest-paid civil servant, CalPERS Chief Investment Officer Stephen Gilmore, took home more than $2.3 million, including a performance incentive of more than $1.5 million, despite CalPERS holding $563 billion in assets against $716 billion in liabilities.

Economist Stephen Moore put the numbers in blunt terms Friday. “If you are wondering where California’s tax dollars go and why the state is drowning in debt, here is a hint: 250 state employees were paid more than $600,000 last year,” Moore wrote. “California does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.” 

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Gilmore’s paycheck is roughly nine times the governor’s $245,929 statutory salary and more than five times the $400,000 paid to the president of the United States. The 2025 controller files, released in late July, cover state department employees. University of California coaches and hospital physicians sit on a separate UC payroll and are not in this ranking.

Even without them, the civil-service list is staggering.

These are the best-documented top earners from the 2025 records and CalPERS’ own compensation disclosure:

  1. Stephen Gilmore, chief investment officer, CalPERS — about $2.3 million (roughly $721,000 salary and more than $1.5 million in “other pay,” booked as a 2024-25 incentive award). 
  2. Arnold Phillips, managing investment director, CalPERS — $1.73 million, including about $1 million in other pay. 
  3. Daniel Bienvenue, deputy chief investment officer, CalPERS — about $1.6 million. 
  4. Marcie Frost, chief executive officer, CalPERS — about $1.6 million. 
  5. Vernon Steiner, president and CEO, State Compensation Insurance Fund — about $1.2 million. Steiner is the highest-paid civil servant outside the two giant pension funds. 
  6. Sarah Corr, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.33 million in fiscal 2024-25 total pay. 
  7. James (Sterling) Gunn, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.27 million. 
  8. Anton Orlich, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.26 million. 
  9. Daniel Booth, deputy chief investment officer for private markets, CalPERS — about $1.24 million. 
  10. Simiso Nzima, managing investment director, CalPERS — about $1.17 million. 

More than 15 pension investment officers and executives cleared $1 million last year. In 2019, only two civil servants did. The top 10 CalPERS and CalSTRS pay packages alone totaled about $15 million in 2025—nearly double the inflation-adjusted total from seven years earlier. 

Just below that club: retired CHP Chief Tai Vong at $914,554, including a $398,000 lump-sum payout; prison psychiatrists Samita Gandhi ($873,872), Olivia Del Pilar ($841,878) and Damon Walcott ($822,971); and sitting CHP chiefs James Mann ($838,272) and Donald Goodbrand ($824,122). CHP Sgt. Leonard Tomboc, the state’s overtime king, collected $414,599 in overtime on top of a $223,438 salary. 

A third of the 250 workers above $600,000 worked at CalPERS or CalSTRS, which together manage hundreds of billions for public employees and teachers. About half of the highest earners were at those funds or the Highway Patrol. 

Executives made up roughly half the top of the list; the rest were investment managers, psychiatrists, physicians and sworn officers. 

Base pay is only part of the story. 

Controller records dump bonuses, incentive awards, overtime, and cash-outs of leave into “other pay.” For Gilmore, that bucket was larger than the salaries of entire agency executive leadership teams.

CalPERS told the Chronicle the $1.5 million was an incentive award tied to fiscal 2024-25 fund performance. The fund reported an 11.6 percent return that year and now oversees more than $600 billion. Defenders will say Wall Street would pay more to run a portfolio that size. 

Taxpayers do not get to opt out of the bill. California still owes tens of billions toward unfunded pension and retiree-health benefits. 

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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Legislature passes bill making it easier for Californians to sue ICE agents

August 29, 2026 By Sara DiNatale, Bob Egelko 1 Comment

Legislation that makes it easier for Californians to sue federal officers, including immigration agents, is heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk after the Senate overwhelmingly passed it Thursday.

The bill, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, passed the Senate in a 28-10 vote after passing 54-17 in the Assembly on Tuesday. Wiener told the Senate the bill creates a pathway for residents to sue any federal, state or local official “who violates their constitutional rights.”

“The only way to end ICE’s violent, lawless behavior is accountability,” Wiener said following the vote. “Today, the California Legislature stood up to hold them accountable.”

Wiener has said the bill would allow people harmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to file a lawsuit over their mistreatment by closing loopholes that made it difficult to sue federal law enforcement in California state courts. Allegations could now include freedom of speech violations, unlawful searches, racial profiling — or wrongful death.

Wiener, who is now running for a congressional seat, first introduced Senate Bill 747, also known as the No Kings Act, in September 2025. But attention on the bill picked up earlier this year in the wake of the violent confrontations in Minnesota, where ICE agents shot and killed 37-year–old Alex Pretti and 37-year-old Renee Good.

“Today’s vote means Californians harmed by a federal agent’s misconduct are one step closer to a real day in court,” Cameron Kistler with nonprofit Protect Democracy said in a statement. “We urge Governor Newsom to sign it into law without delay.”

If signed into law by Newsom, the bill will make California the fifth state this year to give residents a remedy when federal law enforcement violates their constitutional rights, according to Protect Democracy, which co-sponsored the bill. The other states are New York, Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Amendments made to the bill clarify that it does not apply to cities, counties or public entities but, rather, to individuals, Wiener told senators Thursday. He said it does not expand liabilities beyond what federal law already permits.

Despite criticism from Republicans that the legislation goes outside the state’s jurisdiction, Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean at UC Berkeley and an expert in constitutional law, told the Chronicle it’s likely that California will be able to enforce a law allowing lawsuits to be filed against federal agents in state court over violations of constitutional rights.

“I do not believe that the supremacy clause automatically protects federal officers from state tort or criminal liability,” Chemerinsky said, referring to the section of the U.S. Constitution that declares federal law to be the supreme law of the land, overriding any conflicting state laws.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

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Shocking: CA Senate Democrats Reject Banning Pedophile Sex Offenders from Holding Public Office

August 27, 2026 By Katy Grimes 3 Comments

I will not stop fighting until every sex offender is barred from holding public office in California’ said Sen. Valladares

A bill to keep convicted sex offenders from holding public office made it through the Assembly 67 to 0 in early July.

Then it went over to the Senate, with a stop in the Senate Elections Committee, chaired by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and came out grossly amended. The Globe reported June 30th:

AB 2691 by Assemblywoman Dawn Addis (D-San Luis Obispo) prohibits persons convicted of “sexual assault” and “human trafficking” from running for any state or local elective office in California. It’s a good bill, with good intent… or was.

Recent amendments made on June 24, 2026, added in exemptions for pedophile adults who target children for sex.

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Sen. Steven Choi (R-Irvine) was the only NO vote in Senate Elections. He explained:

“The recent amendments of this bill added an exemption to allow adults convicted of molesting children to be eligible to run for public office,” said Sen. Choi. “Before being amended, AB 2691 would have prohibited child groomers and pedophiles from being eligible to run. I questioned the author at the hearing why we would give these monsters an exemption and she couldn’t explain. That’s unacceptable.”

California Family Council provides details:

“AB 2691, authored by Assemblywoman Dawn Addis, is called the Public Trust Protection Act. It would disqualify people convicted of felony sexual assault or human trafficking from running for or holding state or local elected office. California Family Council supports that idea. The problem is what got added on June 24.”

The bill defines “sexual assault” to include crimes like rape, sodomy, oral copulation, and sexual penetration. But a new exception carves out three of those crimes when they are committed against a minor age 14 to 17: felony sodomy, oral copulation, and sexual penetration, including cases where the perpetrator is over 21 and the victim is 14 or 15. Committed against an adult, or against a child under 14, those crimes count as sexual assault and bar someone from office. Committed against a 14-to-17-year-old, they don’t.

In plain terms: a person convicted of felony sexual assault against an adult, or against a child under 14, would be barred from public office under this bill. A person convicted of the same acts against a 14-to-17-year-old would not be.

These are the exemptions from the definition of sexual assault the following crimes:
1. Penal Code §286(b) (sodomy on a minor)
2. Penal Code §287 (b) (oral copulation on a minor)
3. Penal Code §897(h) +(i) (sexual penetration on a minor)

With all of the new exemptions involving minors, claiming that these sex crimes are not felonies is flagrant.

The sex acts against minors – children – are universally held as heinous and indefensible.

If any of this is ringing a bell, Sen. Wiener, in 2019, authored Senate Bill 145 which at the time of its introduction would allow a sex offender who lures a minor with the intent to commit a felony sex act, the ability to escape registering as a sex offender as long as the offender is within 10 years of age of the minor.As we reported in 2020, SB 145  allows a 24 year old to have sex with a 14 year old, relaxing the penalties for having “non-forcible sodomy, oral copulation, and sexual penetration with a minor.”

Governor Gavin Newsom signed Wiener’s SB 145 in 2020. The Globe reported: “Gov. Newsom Signs Bill to Protect Sex Offenders Who Have Homosexual Sex with Minors,” asking,  “How can this bill be legal when California’s age of consent is still 18?”

Senator Suzette Valladares (R-Santa Clarita) weighed in on the exemptions for child-sex offenses for candidates at the June Senate Elections hearing, stating:

Right now, a registered sex offender can run for school board in California. Nothing in state law stops them. A bill to fix that, AB 2753, passed the Assembly 60-0.

Then Senate Democrats killed it in committee, and advanced a different bill carving out an exception for people convicted of sex crimes against children. This already almost happened. A registered sex offender tried to run for Fresno City Council this year.

Protecting kids should not be controversial.

Parents and voters deserve better.

Senator Valladares on Tuesday called on the California Senate to restore the bill language that would ban dangerous criminals, including convicted sex offenders, from holding public office in California.

She called on her colleagues to accept her amendments to AB 2691, which would have closed a loophole in the bill allowing convicted sex offenders, including people convicted of crimes against children, to hold public office, including serving on school boards in California.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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Fed up with high prices, California weighs penalties against hospitals, other entities

August 26, 2026 By Claudia Boyd-Barrett 1 Comment
About half of U.S. adults say they can’t afford healthcare. California is among at least eight states that have set spending growth targets for the healthcare sector. It may soon impose enforcement penalties aimed at pushing hospitals and other providers to meet those goals.

California is weighing stiff penalties for hospitals and other healthcare entities that don’t stay under state spending limits, potentially levying hundreds of millions of dollars in fines if these providers don’t take steps to rein in rising healthcare costs.

If the state Office of Health Care Affordability adopts the fines this week, hospitals, medical groups, insurers and others could face penalties that amount to as much as 125% of the total they spend above the state’s annual growth targets.

The penalty proposal comes after healthcare entities in California were asked to limit growth by 3.5% last year and ramp down to 3% by 2029. Seven hospitals that state officials consider particularly expensive face even smaller growth targets: 1.8% in 2026, dropping to 1.6% by 2029.

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Consumer advocates argue that state financial deterrents are critical to bring relief to millions of Californians struggling with high insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. Hospitals accounted for 40% of the increase in U.S. health spending from 2022 to 2024, compared with 11% from retail prescription drugs. But adding teeth to those targets sets up a fight with the powerful hospital industry, which has a pending lawsuit challenging the spending limits as unreasonable.

Hospitals warned that they will cut back on vital services, including in emergency rooms, obstetrics and behavioral health.

Healthcare industry representatives said the state affordability office hasn’t accounted for year-to-year volatility or other factors beyond the industry’s control, such as rising minimum wages, state earthquake retrofit requirements, and expensive new drugs.

“They’re building the plane while flying it,” said Ben Johnson, group vice president for financial policy at the California Hospital Assn. “We know improvements in affordability are needed, but we have serious questions about how and about what the unintended consequences could be under OHCA’s rather stringent approaches.”

When calculating penalties, California regulators would consider various factors, including a healthcare entity’s financial situation, its market impact and the gravity and number of offenses, according to a board presentation in June. And entities would first be given opportunities to implement performance improvement plans to bring their spending into line before penalties are imposed. For those that don’t comply, the board is considering penalties of $10,000 a day or a flat $500,000.

The penalties, which the affordability office’s eight-member board is required by state law to adopt, are slated for discussion, and a potential vote, at the board’s Aug. 26 meeting. The soonest healthcare providers would be subject to penalties is 2028, because it’s expected it will take two years to collect and publicly report spending data to measure against the 2026 targets.

The state is still collecting data on how entities performed against the 2025 targets, which aren’t enforceable, according to Andrew DiLuccia, a spokesperson for the California Department of Health Care Access and Information.

States set targets

California is one of at least eight states that have set spending targets as part of an expanding effort to curb soaring healthcare spending across the nation. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon and Rhode Island have also authorized the use of some type of financial penalty. The specifics of each vary widely, although so far no state has applied them.

A survey last year by the California Health Care Foundation found that 4 out of 10 state residents said they had medical debt, and 6 in 10 reported that they or a family member had skipped or delayed medical care in the previous 12 months because of cost. Nationwide, about half of adults say it is difficult to afford healthcare costs.

After Rosalyn Book got stitches on her chin, the elementary school teacher received a $15,000 ER bill from a hospital, despite having insurance. Many teachers in her district leave because they can’t afford the cost of healthcare and insurance premiums, she said.

“The healthcare charges are just insanity, and what we get as patients for the care, it’s not the best either,” said Book, president of the Monterey Bay Teachers Assn. “If you’re a working, regular individual in terms of how much you make, the cost of living and especially the healthcare is just not doable.”

Meanwhile, hospitals are warning there’s a risk of more closures. According to Yale University’s Health Care Affordability Lab, 17 hospitals have closed in the state since 2016, compared with only six openings.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

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California Wants to Fine You $4,000 for Asking Questions | On Background | Ep. 35

August 25, 2026 By RCP Video 7 Comments

California Democrats really don’t like Nick Shirley and his brand of journalism. But a high-ranking statehouse aide took it to another level, interrupting Shirley’s attempt to interview a state lawmaker on the street by holding up a paper sign questioning the size of his manhood.

Terry Schanz, who makes $200,000 a year as chief of staff to state assembly Rep. Tina McKinnor (D-CA), disrupted Shirley’s interview on the street near the state capitol, shouting and holding a printed paper sign that read “Allegedly Nick Shirley Has a Small Penis. Prove Me Wrong.”

“This is the kind of gutter-level politics we now have in California,” says investigative reporter Susan Crabtree. She and her On Background podcast co-host Eric Eggers of the Government Accountability institute play a video clip of the confrontation, which shows Schanz aggressively disrupting the interview.

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“What he did is the definition of political bullying. And he [Schanz] knew he was being filmed,” Crabtree says. She doubts Schanz will face any repercussions for his “childish” behavior. “This is a sign of what happens when you have one-party control of a state,” she says. “There’s no accountability.”

Shirley is well known for a series of confrontational interviews he filmed while exposing fraudulent daycare centers in Minneapolis, as well as similar efforts in California. Democrats in California just passed and sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk a bill that would criminalize doing that while inside “Immigration Support Service Centers” in the state. The bill was created by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (D-Oakland), who is also the wife of California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta. It would fine citizen journalists a minimum of $4,000. Critics have noted that it appears to target one citizen journalist in particular, derisively calling the bill the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”

Eggers notes the irony of a Democratic political operative trying to intimidate Shirley while pushing for adoption of the legislation. “The thing they are doing in the bill, Schanz just did,” he notes.

Crabtree has herself taken abuse from government staffers. After Newsom told a black audience he had been diagnosed as dyslexic, she asked his

Meanwhile, newly declassified FBI records detailed that former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s told the FBI back in 2015 that he “occasionally hooked up” with a suspected Chinese spy named Fang Fang. Also known as Christine Fang and a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, she placed interns in his office, and illegally funneled Chinese money to his political campaigns.

The sordid details didn’t stop Swalwell from running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and he was the frontrunner in the race to succeed Gov. Newsom this year until several other women came forward with sexual assault allegations that forced him to abandon that bid and immediately resign from Congress in disgrace.

Apparently that investigation is ongoing. The Daily Mail reported this week that Swalwell’s phone and personal computer were seized by FBI agents last Saturday night when he landed in San Francisco’s airport before conducting a search at his residence in Washington, D.C. the following day. The warrant was filed under a statute used to prosecute officials who abuse their government authority.

Eggers quips, “The sex stuff is more interesting, but there’s a lot more going on.”

Finally, Crabtree reacts to the release of a bombshell new report by the Dept. of Health and Human Services on medical and surgical procedures performed on children who identified as the opposite sex. “Wolves in White Coats” says more than 225 hospitals and health systems established pediatric gender programs nationwide between 2015 through 2025 and asserts there may have been insurance fraud in how hormone blockers and surgical mutilations of children at those facilities coded the reasons for those actions.

Click here to read the full article at Real Clear Politics

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Walters: California’s clashes over business regulation rage on as legislative session nears end

August 25, 2026 By Dan Walters 1 Comment

The state Capitol’s most enduring conflict pits corporate California against four powerful interest groups over new regulations, taxes, minimum wages or other costly mandates.

The specific issues may vary from year to year, although some continue for decades, but the underlying clash of interests is perpetual.

The four groups arrayed against business — unions, personal injury lawyers, consumer advocates and environmentalists — contend their bills are needed to protect consumers, workers or the environment. Business executives see them as driving higher operational costs that threaten companies’ profitability or even existence.

As the Legislature approaches the August 31 adjournment of its two-year session, some of the bills arising from the conflict are still pending, and the contending forces are applying maximum pressure to affect the outcomes.

One example is Assembly Bill 2564, carried by Assemblymember Christopher Ward, a San Diego Democrat, on behalf of unions, consumer groups and advocates for the poor.

It would prohibit retailers from engaging in “surveillance pricing,” which is a form of algorithmic pricing in which sellers use personal information to tailor prices to specific consumers.

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Backers of the bill say it’s needed to avoid discrimination, while retailers say the measure could eliminate coupons and other forms of price discounts for loyal customers, thus raising the cost of living in an already expensive state.

The most important measure still pending in the Legislature, at least from the standpoint of California’s overall business climate, is Assembly Bill 1776, authored by Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Democrat from Davis.

It would broaden California’s anti-monopoly Cartwright Act, first enacted in 1907 to allow civil or criminal actions against corporations that monopolize markets.

The Cartwright Act, which has been amended several times since its enactment, resembles the federal Sherman Antitrust Act in several regards but is broader in its reach. It still is aimed at collusion between two or more corporations to stifle competition and raise prices. But AB 1776 would also sanction actions against corporations that become dominant without colluding.

The change was recommended by the California Law Revision Commission to curb monopolistic behavior framers of the original law never envisioned. It is backed by a long list of consumer advocates and unions.

Business interests led by the California Chamber of Commerce see it as opening the door to lawsuits that would penalize corporations for earning market shares honorably vis-à-vis long-established practices.

Until a few days ago, the bill also would have allowed lawyers to instigate lawsuits on their own, a provision known as “private right of action,” which opponents found particularly onerous. That provision was removed after the bill narrowly passed the Assembly and moved to the Senate floor, thus limiting its enforcement to the attorney general or local prosecutors.

The California Chamber of Commerce is still steadfastly opposed. It contends the bill still allows crackdowns on corporations that are just operating normally, penalizing them for success in gaining substantial market power.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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