To spur more housing in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature carved out notable exceptions to California’s 54-year-old environmental review law as part of the state budget deal they hammered out last week. But rolling back parts of the landmark statute might have not happened had it not been for one particular construction union.
As CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang and Ben Christopher explain, the California Conference of Carpenters worked with Democratic lawmakers to push the law’s exemption for certain apartment developments by supporting a proposal that would have allowed developers to pay residential construction workers — who are mostly all non-union — a lower minimum wage than those required for publicly subsidized projects relatively on par with union-level pay.
The proposal was ultimately scrapped after drawing severe criticism from the influential State Building and Construction Trades Council, which argued that it would undercut pay standards. But the rift between the two groups highlighted the Carpenters’ alternative approach to view non-union workers not as competition, but as prospective members worth protecting. Having the support of the Carpenters, if not the Trades, has been crucial for lawmakers seeking changes to state housing policy.
- Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and author of several housing bills: “It changed everything. It created more space for more dialogue and less of the ‘my way or the highway’ approach.”
Another housing shakeup: Ben also reports on California’s newest state agency exclusively focused on housing and homelessness issues. Spun out of the reorganization of an existing state agency that oversees a grab bag of other policy matters, the new cabinet-level department would prioritize two of California’s highest-profile, persistent crises, as well as streamline the state’s various affordable housing financing systems.
Though it’s too soon to know what effects the agency will have on increasing housing and making it more affordable, some legislators and housing advocates have expressed skepticism about whether a bureaucratic reshuffling could significantly turn things around.
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Other Stories You Should Know
Can AI help prevent homelessness?
From CalMatters homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall:
New data suggests artificial intelligence can be effective at preventing homelessness, according to an analysis of a Los Angeles County-based program that uses an algorithm to predict who is likely to end up on the street.
As CalMatters previously reported, the program, which launched in 2021, reaches out to those people before they lose their housing and gives them each an average of about $6,500 to pay for necessities such as rent, utilities, transportation and resolving debt.
People who participated in the pilot program between May 2022 and February 2023 were 71% less likely to end up in a homeless shelter or make contact with a street outreach team than people with similar risk factors who weren’t enrolled in the program, according to a California Policy Lab study released Thursday.
But getting people signed up is a challenge. Only about one in five people the program administrators reached out to during the pilot period ultimately enrolled.
The program is ongoing, and additional data from a more formal randomized trial will be available after 2027.
Turn down for what 🔊
The Assembly is considering a bill with strong bipartisan support that would prohibit online streaming services from increasing the volume during commercials, writes CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow.
But does the state have the authority to regulate streaming services, or would this undermine federal regulations?
In 2010 President Barack Obama signed a law granting the Federal Communications Commission the ability to issue rules that ensured that the average volume of TV commercials couldn’t be louder than the programming they aired with. In recent years, some members of Congress have tried, and failed, to include streaming platforms to the law.
Citing a 2014 federal appeals court case, UC Berkeley Law Professor Tejas Narechania said California could attempt to achieve what Congress couldn’t do by enacting “consumer protections aimed at California residents, even if they affected out-of-state content providers.”
California’s entertainment industry opposes the bill. During a June Assembly committee hearing, Melissa Patack, a spokesperson for the Motion Picture Association, argued that streaming services have already done “a significant amount of work” to address excessive volume with ads.
And lastly: Cultural regalia at graduations
The Legislature is considering a bill that would end school district requirements for pre-approval to wear cultural regalia at graduation. CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on why a federal order complicates the issue as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.
SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.
California Voices
CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: An Assembly bill intended to hold charter schools more accountable would also thwart new charters from forming and impose tough restrictions on existing ones.
California Voices deputy editor Denise Amos: Low-income defendants can’t really be judged by a “jury of their peers” in California if the state keeps backing away from policies that would make jury pools more diverse.
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