Widely criticized as an imperfect bill, SB1262 nonetheless mustered support as a good faith attempt to bring order to the chaos unfolding in the wake of the 1996 passage by voters of Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana in California. The bill was authored by state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana.

The language of Prop. 215 included this passage, “To encourage the federal and state governments to implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all patients in medical need of marijuana.”

But “encourage” was not strong enough a word, as little has been done in the past 18 years to implement Prop. 15 in a statewide fashion. Instead, across California’s many municipalities local laws have taken dramatically different approaches to medical pot.

SB1962 at least would have been a start at finally implementing the intent of Prop. 215 for statewide regulation. Instead, the bill was put on hold by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, dashing activists’ hopes until at least next year.

Tangled regulations

Supported by the League of California Cities as well as law enforcement groups, SB1262 would have approached the patchwork regulations that complicate pot law by creating a single state government agency, the Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation. As the Sacramento Bee detailed, the bureau would have been established as a branch of the Department of Consumer Affairs. By licensing and standardizing the cultivation, sale and transport of marijuana, proponents hoped the bill would ensure that both medical pot suppliers and police departments would enjoy an increase in predictability and control.

A flurry of amendments, many of which were interpreted as victories for activists, failed to help the bill’s fortunes. The laundry-list character of the adopted changes underscored the challenge of bringing a single set of standards and rules to California’s sprawling and complex marijuana economy.

Among the amendments were provisions that would lift a proposed cap on licensed cultivators, allow applicants with former medical marijuana convictions to obtain licenses and allow applicants to be licensed in multiple categories, including cultivation and distribution.

In a little noticed but significant provision, SB1262 would also permit the nearly $2 billion medical marijuana industry to turn a profit. As the East Bay Express reported, current guidelines, crafted in 2008, required medical pot collectives to “operate as ‘not-for-profit’ enterprises.” The rule has become a legal sticking point in recent years as arrests, raids and prison sentences have depended on charges of “profit-making.”

Despite these potentially controversial details, SB1262 was seen as an improvement on previous legislation. State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, saw his competing bill, AB 1894, fail in the Assembly this May.

Nevertheless, he became a co-author of SB1262, which incorporated key provisions of AB1894. California cops didn’t throw their weight behind Ammiano’s bill. According to Vice News, cops’ cooperation on SB1262 led activists to suspect that law enforcement wanted SB1262 to shape marijuana reform before voters had a chance to consider a ballot initiative to legalize recreational pot use in 2016.

Political jockeying

Sure enough, politicians including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom have made public their willingness to campaign for a ballot initiative in two years’ time. Andrea Koskey, Newsom’s communications director, told the Huffington Post that Newsom would support a ballot measure that addresses age limits, advertising and “driving under the influence.”

Further details, however, remained somewhat shrouded in calculated uncertainty. Newsom, said Koskey, “doesn’t want to see the drug in the hands of kids,” but listed a series of policy questions “that we don’t have answers to yet,” ranging from taxes and banking to restrictions on public use.

Newsom, who is expected to run for governor in 2018, has been vocal in his opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown on the issue of pot regulation. While Brown has warned that legalizing recreational marijuana would harm Californians’ ability to stay focused and alert, Newsom has countered that the war on drugs has complicated Brown’s struggles to bring California’s prison system into line with a string of harsh federal judicial rebukes. On MSNBC, Newsom said the governor was simply “wrong” on the issue.

The disagreement among top-ranking Democrats indicates the failure of SB 1262 won’t be the last of Sacramento’s efforts to wrangle a marijuana bill that can pass. But the next piece of legislation won’t come from Ammiano or Correa. Both are term limited this year.

By Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, AB 1266’s language says “that a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

The bill was co-authored by state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Leno explained the need for the bill to AP:

“There should be certainty that every kid has the chance to go to school and be treated equally and fairly. We know that these particular students suffer much abuse and bullying and denigration. We can’t change that overnight, but what we can do is make sure that the rules are such that they get a fair shake.”

And AP reported on a statement emailed by the Transgender Law Center. In it, 16-year-old transgender boy Ashton Lee said:

“I just want to be treated the same as all the other boys, but my school forces me to take P.E. in a class of all girls and live as someone I’m not. I can’t learn and succeed when every day in that class leaves me feeling isolated and alone.”

Signatures

If the 620,000 signatures just turned for the initiative qualify the referendum for the ballot, it will be voted on during the next general election in Nov. 2014.

“This is a win for the people,” said Karen England, Executive Director of the Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative think tank, and the co-chairwoman of the Privacy for All Students referendum.

Privacy for All Students is a coalition of parents, students, nonprofit and faith groups who launched the referendum effort to give voters the right to decide whether to accept AB 1266, which would inevitably transform intimate school facilities such as showers, bathrooms and locker rooms, according to England.

The law would allow transgender students to self-identify as transgender, in order to use school bathrooms and try out for sports teams of their chosen gender, even if that differs from what’s stated on their birth certificates.

Around the state in 80 days

“We had under 80 days to do this,” England said. “This is a new way of doing things, which may be how our founding fathers intended.”

England said she had so much support for the signature gathering. “We had a fellow in Reedly, CA who collected 2,000 signatures,” she said. “We had people who drove for hours to deliver only a few signatures, and hundreds of signatures. The Calvary Chapel church in Chino Hills delivered 46,000 signatures! Sadly, it’s clear, most politicians don’t care. It does take the people.”

England said a change of the magnitude of AB 1266 would cause chaos and confusion in the state’s public schools.

England said there was also huge support coming from Chinese churches in the San Francisco Bay area. “People drove more than five hours round trip to deliver their collected signatures,” she said.

Privacy violations for 99.7 percent

“We’re not going to stand by and let 99.7 percent of our students lose their privacy and free speech rights just because 0.3 percent of the population are gender-confused,” said Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute.

Specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties, the non-profit Pacific Justice Institute works without charge, to provide its clients.

“LGBT activists are sacrificing the safety and sanity of children in our schools to push an extreme political agenda,” Dacus said. “This battle is no longer confined to California or Colorado, where we have another case; it is spreading to every part of the nation. It is crucial that we act now to prevent a crippling blow to our constitutional freedoms.”

If allowed go into effect, AB 1266 would deprive non-transgender students in public schools of their privacy rights and affect girls’ rights to participate in sports, Dacus explained. “Case law firmly establishes that we as Americans have the right to privacy, under the Constitution,” said Dacus. “This case is irrefutably self-evident.”

Privacy is especially sensitive to students during the pre-teen and teenage years. “A 12- or 14-year-old girl should have a right to change clothes and shower in a locker room, without having a 14-year old boy showering and changing his clothes next to her,” Dacus said. “Outside of rape, this is the greatest violation of individual privacy imaginable. Yet it is exactly what was legislated and mandated to occur, under the pretext of a boy who, in his mind, thinks he’s a girl.”

“The Legislature could have passed something compassionate and supportive for gender-confused children, to help resolve the underlying issues for dysphoria,” Dacus said. “Instead, this law ties the hands of parents, school officials, and psychologists, in how gender confusion is addressed. It’s anti-transgender.”

Defending AB 1266

NBC Bay Area profiled one teen who backs the bill:

“Kane Atticus Tajnai lived as Kathryn Amanda for 16 years before coming out to his family as a transgender teen.

“Kane, now a senior at Gunderson High School in San Jose, said he never felt completely comfortable — not just with being identified as a girl, but about labels in general. For Kane, the labels on the bathroom doors at school were some of the hardest to face. He wanted to go into the boys’ room, but felt obligated to go into the girls’ bathroom.

“So he tried not to go at all….

“As for Kane, changing in the boys’ locker room and using the boys’ bathroom at school has not resulted in any problems.

“He believes this new law has the power to save lives. He remembers his worst nights, feeling desperate and alone, and though he sometimes still has emotional struggles, he feels much freer — a feeling he hopes others in his shoes can also experience. With that, he had a question for the opponents of AB 1266.

“’Don’t I deserve the same safety at school and same comfort level at school, that all the other students do?’ he said.”

Parents mad at the mainstream media

Karen England said hundreds of the Privacy for All Students volunteers told her they were angry with the mainstream media for not highlighting the seriousness of Ammiano’s bill. “People from all over the state said they heard little or nothing about AB 1266,” England said. “They were outraged when they realized the law had passed, and asked me, ‘what was Jerry Brown thinking?’ This referendum protects all students, including girls who don’t want to go the bathroom with a boy in the next bathroom stall.”

“A referendum is hard, and it should be,” England added. “This has cost $500,000, of which $300,000 has gone to paid petition gatherers. The rest is a massive grass roots organization.” In recent years, paid petition-gathering has cost about $2 million for a statewide initiative. So the low cost of this campaign shows the grassroots effect.

“This has been a huge battle,” England said. “Democratic politicians need take note — the sleeping giant in California is going to wake up.”

If Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has his way, your babysitter soon could join a union and cost you a lot more.

The San Francisco Democrat has authored several domestic-worker unionization bills that have been vetoed by California governors. Now he's back with Assembly Bill 241, which just passed both houses of the Legislature and is awaiting a signature or veto from Gov. Jerry Brown.

The bill would significantly impact home health care providers’ ability to provide affordable care to elderly clients or clients with disabilities.

Flexibility in schedules for such workers is imperative, based on the unique needs of the client. But the law would make it difficult to provide care to those needing around-the-clock assistance.

The other problem is the home-care industry will be forced to absorb the additional increased labor costs caused by this bill. The increased costs could make live-in care unaffordable for many families, landing more elderly Californians in state-run long-term medical care hospitals.

It always starts with a resolution

In 2010, the Legislature passed a Resolution for a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which spawned a study by UCLA on the issue.

“This resolution highlights the work done by domestic workers in the state and the labor violations faced by these workers,” the UCLA study said. “The resolution calls for the fair treatment of these workers, noting that domestic workers have a right to be treated with respect and dignity.”

The California Domestic Worker Coalition was formed in 2009 to replicate New York’s Domestic Worker Bill of Rights.

The coalition included Mujeres Unidas Y Activas, POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights), La Colectiva de Mujeres of La Raza Centro Legal, Filipino Advocates for Justice, Grayton Day Labor Program, the Pilipino Worker Center, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, and Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California.

In 2009, the coalition brought together 100 domestic workers to create a list of demands for workplace protections available to other workers, such as overtime pay, Cal/OSHA safety standards and workers’ compensation.

This isn’t just a grassroots effort to help domestic workers. It’s being pushed by big labor groups such as Urban Habitat, the International Labour Organization and the National Domestic Worker Alliance.

Bill amended in order to get it passed

Then, what was promised as just a resolution recognizing this group of the workforce morphed into this year's AB241.
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AB241 was amended so much, the bill’s language went from “would specially regulate the wages, hours, and working conditions of domestic work employees”; to “would regulate the hours of work of certain domestic work employees and provide an overtime compensation rate for those employees.”

And AB241 now includes a sunset date of January 1, 2017. But sunset dates are regularly re-legislated and extended.

What lawmakers do is take out offensive language in order to get the bill passed. Then once it is law, the state agency which oversees the law goes into action, adding certain aspects back into it through regulations, statutes and lawsuit outcomes.

“Domestic work” means services related to the care of persons in private households or the maintenance of private households or their premises. Domestic work occupations include childcare providers, caregivers of people with disabilities, sick, convalescing, or elderly persons, house cleaners, housekeepers, maids and other household occupations.

The bill now punishes an employer by forcing them to pay overtime. The bill reads:

“A domestic work employee who is a personal attendant shall not be employed more than nine hours in any workday or more than 45 hours in any workweek unless the employee receives one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked over nine hours in any workday and for all hours worked more than 45 hours in the workweek.”

In other occupations, standard overtime is paid after eight hours in one work day, and after 40 in one week.

Setting up the latest bill

In 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed Ammiano's previous regulation of domestic workers, AB889, Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. The bill would have allowed a state agency to develop regulations on overtime and meal breaks for nannies, maids and other domestic workers.

In his veto message, Brown wrote:

“What will be the economic and human impact on the disabled or elderly person and their family of requiring overtime, rest and meal periods for attendants who provide 24-hour care?…. Will it increase costs to the point of forcing people out of their homes and into licensed institutions?”

That may be an indication that Brown also will veto the new bill, AB241. But so far he has not indicated what he will do.

One thing that remains clear is that AB241 is an entre to unionizing nannies, domestic caregivers and adult (not teenage) babysitters.

Opponents of the bill warned unionizing domestic workers would hurt workers while helping labor unions. Workers would forced to pay union dues out of their low wages, and no longer would have the ability to work flexible schedules and hours.

To avoid the bill, many employers — such as parents — might try to hire illegal aliens already working outside the law. This would mean that many American citizens, or legal resident immigrants, could lose their jobs.

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — The “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights,” AB 241, may have a certain civil rights ring to it, but it really should be called the Unionize Babysitters and Nannies Bill.

By Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, in the bill’s language it, “[W]ould specially regulate the wages, hours, and working conditions of domestic work employees.” It would “include childcare providers, caregivers of people with disabilities, sick, convalescing, or elderly persons, house cleaners, housekeepers, maids, and other household occupations.” In many cases it would mandate pay for “travel time spent by a personal attendant” and regulate “accommodations for a domestic work employee who is required to sleep in a private household.”

It would encourage unionization, turning your nanny and babysitter into union members.

At Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, Ammiano’s witnesses told of severe abuses by domestic care givers at the hands of employers. The stories were horrific.

One woman told of coming to America to work, but was enslaved and forced to work 18-hour days, seven days a week. The FBI eventually broke up the slavery ring and the perpetrators went to jail.

However, the bill wouldn’t do any more for such victims because slavery already has been outlawed in America since the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed in 1865. It was the ban on slavery and the FBI that nabbed the slavemasters, not California law.

California already has the country’s strictest labor laws. And unionizing domestic workers would hurt workers more than help. They would forced to pay union dues out of their low wages, and no longer would have the ability to work flexible schedules and hours. Your home would be more like a factory than a setting of domestic bliss.

To avoid the bill, many employers — such as parents — might try to hire illegal aliens already working outside the law. Which would mean that many American citizens, or legal resident immigrants, could lose their jobs.

It always starts with a resolution

By Katy Grimes

As if plucked right out of the silly book, “There Oughta Be A Law,” San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has been pushing a bill through the Legislature which has the potential of turning all schools into beta test sites for social experiments.

AB 1266 would require a student to be permitted to use the male or female bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools, based on the student’s gender self-identification.

Lawmakers who support this bill claim they are protecting civil rights by creating laws for transgender persons. However, the bathroom is usually a place where there is an expectation of privacy. So the question becomes: Whose civil rights are being protected and whose are being trampled?

Sponsored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality California, Transgender Law Center and Gay Straight Alliance Network, AB 1266 would also require students be allowed to participate in sports and programs as the gender with which they identify.

While the Los Angeles Unified School District and San Francisco schools have already adopted “Transgender and gender variant students, ensuring equity and nondiscrimination” policies, the LAUSD acknowledged Ammiano’s “legislation cannot anticipate every situation that might occur with respect to transgender and gender variant students.”

Is there a real need for this bill?

In the bill analysis, Ammiano said:

“AB 1266 clarifies California’s student nondiscrimination laws by specifying that all students in K-12 schools must be permitted to participate in school programs, activities, and facilities in accordance with the student’s gender identity. This bill is needed to ensure that transgender students are protected and have the same opportunities to participate and succeed as all other students.

“Although current California law already protects students from discrimination in education based on sex and gender identity, many school districts do not understand and are not presently in compliance with their obligations to treat transgender students the same as all other students in the specific areas addressed by this bill. As a result, some school districts are excluding transgender students from sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities.”

The requirement Ammiano makes of schools to treat transgender students the same as all other students is perplexing. That is exactly what most schools are doing. It’s only when parents and special interest groups sue that these issues escalate.

Washington State problems

Washington State passed such a law in 2006, and has run into a big problem.

“Parents in Washington state became outraged last year when their young daughters, who participate in their local swim club, discovered a male sitting naked in the sauna ‘displaying male genitalia,’” the Christian News Net reported last fall. However, police and school representatives of Evergreen State College alike said there wasn’t anything they could do about the situation because of state law.

The transgender “student” is 45 years old.

Child transgender cases

There is also the case of the first grade transgender girl whose parents allowed their six-year-old son to “come out” as a girl. The parents then filed a complaint with the Colorado Office of Civil Rights alleging a violation of the state’s anti-discrimination law because the elementary school didn’t allow the child to use the girls’ restroom. The school tried to accommodate the girl by allowing her to use the bathroom in the school office, but that wasn’t enough for the parents. With the help of The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, the parents sued, and their child’s intensely personal story has been made very public.

Yet research suggests that many children gradually become “comfortable with their natal gender,” an American Psychiatric Association task force reported in 2011. But the goal of any treatment should be to help the child adjust to its reality, the APA says.

The transgender condition was added to the APA diagnosis manual in 1980. In the newest edition of the manual, the condition has been renamed Gender Dysphoria.

But many parents and students feel this very small group is being moved to the front of the civil rights line.

The Pacific Justice Institute is opposed to Ammiano’s bill, and is fighting hard to kill it. “Foremost among the bill’s many shortcomings is its complete disregard for the privacy of the vast majority of students who are not transgender or gender-questioning,” PJI said. “These students (and their parents) have reasonable expectations that they will not be forced to share intimate spaces with members of the opposite biological and anatomical gender. There are no safeguards whatsoever in the legislation that would allow responsible adults, including coaches, teachers, chaparones, school administrators and others to act in the best interests of all students.”

If AB 1266 is passed and signed into law, girls will be forced to use bathrooms, locker rooms and showers with anatomical males, and boys with anatomical females, because the transgender persons self-identify as a member of the opposite sex.

Legal issues

In the private sector, employers are required to make “reasonable accommodations” for persons of all legally protected categories. One reasonable accommodation for a transgender employee would be exactly what the school offered the Colorado first grader — allowing someone to use a private bathroom instead of the common facilities.

Protecting the privacy interests of minor students more than adults was supported in Doe vs. Clenchy, Maine Superior Court, 2012. The court ruled that a school district did not 
act discriminatorily by assigning a third grade male-to-female transgender student to use a faculty restroom rather than the female student restrooms.

Several federal and state courts have recognized the significant concerns of opposite sex entry into restrooms and other similarly sensitive, usually private facilities. In Etsitty vs. 
Utah Transit Authority, 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, 2007, a male-to-female transsexual was terminated by the Utah Transit Authority for entering women’s public restrooms while on the job because 
the UTA feared liability from patrons. In 
the ensuing unlawful gender discrimination suit, the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of the UTA, stating that requiring employees to use restrooms that match their biological gender is not discriminatory.

In Goins v. West Group, Minnesota Superior Court, 2001, a male-to-female transgender resigned from and then sued 
West Group after not being allowed to use the women’s restroom. The Court held that West Group’s policy of requiring employees to use the restroom assigned to their biological gender, rather than their self-image gender, was not discriminatory, stating that “the traditional and accepted practice in the employment setting is to provide restroom facilities that reflect the cultural preference for restroom designation based on biological gender.”

These legal cases support the common sense understanding that biological and anatomical gender still matter in certain intimate contexts.

Another concern is the insistence that gender should be entirely self-identified and divorced from anatomy.

The bill analysis claimed there was no fiscal component or issue with AB 1266. But if it is passed, expect to see public schools being forced to completely remodel bathrooms and locker room facilities to comply. Doing so also would deplete scarce school funds.

Ammiano’s bill establishes no standard to determine the veracity of a pupil’s claim to a particular gender identity. Without establishing any standard, the determination will be left to the pupil who may claim any gender identity at any time for any reason.

By Steven Greenhut

SACRAMENTO — The Homeless Bill of Rights, the name applied to a bill that recently soared through the California Assembly’s Judiciary Committee on a 7-2 vote, is the latest in a long line of legislation that has grabbed national attention for its sheer outlandishness. It’s not too far-fetched to fear that, eventually, California’s “differently sheltered” will be the only residents left with any rights.

AB 5’s worst provisions have been stripped away, and I doubt the governor would sign something that so thoroughly offends municipal officials, but the proposal does epitomize so much of the thinking that dominates this state’s government. Legislators in all states introduce unorthodox stuff to make a point. But in California, strange bills can actually make it to the governor’s desk.

The homeless bill’s author, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, deserves credit for at least identifying a real problem, noteworthy in a Legislature that too often avoids reality. Homelessness is rampant in much of California, and the troubled people who wander our streets often have nowhere to go as they get chased from one location to the next.

Homelessness is a vexing problem, but the solution is not to make the homeless a protected class, with a constitutional right to urinate on sidewalks and accumulate piles of vermin-infested belongings in city parks. Instead of giving the homeless a place to live, the state government wants to give them taxpayer-subsidized lawyers.

The bill features overwrought civil-rights-inspired language. It notes that California has “a long history of discriminatory laws and ordinances that have disproportionately affected people with low incomes.” The language refers to Jim Crow laws and Depression-era anti-Okie laws.

Cities here struggle — sometimes clumsily and unfairly – with throngs of people who camp out in city parks and sleep on sidewalks and in public doorways. There is a legitimate public issue here.

When I worked in a downtown Sacramento office building, my colleagues and I joked about seeming to be in a scene from a zombie movie. As we walked down the street, homeless people would shuffle toward us, hands out, appealing for money. One of my reporters was assaulted by a homeless person.

And in a well-publicized incident near my old office, a homeless woman shot a man in a wheelchair after he told her to get a job. It’s not always unreasonable to try to shoo them away.

Just pawns in their game

The homeless — many of whom are mentally ill or have substance-abuse issues — need compassion and social services (preferably ones provided by nonprofits, rather than by government bureaucracies, too often focused more on their own employees). Instead, they are used as pawns in a politician’s posturing.

The most objectionable language in the Ammiano bill has been removed. Critics pointed to the now-deleted provision that guaranteed homeless people “the right to engage in life-sustaining activities that must be carried out in public spaces.” That includes eating, congregating, collecting personal property and urinating. I’ve known nonhomeless people who have received a citation for peeing in public, but a homeless person would have been exempt had the original language remained intact.

Legislators also stripped away a provision that would have banned private businesses from discriminating against homeless people, which would have resulted in restaurants and hotels becoming a haven for these folks. And forget about private-property rights.

The current version still includes the right to panhandle, the right to occupy public spaces, the right to fish through trash receptacles in search of recyclables, the right to sleep in a car and the right to taxpayer-funded legal counsel if a municipality issues a citation to a homeless person for any of the protected activities. The legislation also requires the state to fund homeless shelters and “hygiene centers.”

Harmful regulation

Unfortunately, Ammiano’s legitimate points — i.e., how local governments make it difficult at times for nonprofits and churches to hand out food and operate homeless shelters — are lost in the outrage.

It would be nice if homeless advocates recognized the degree to which governmental regulations such as rent control, excessive building regulations, union wage requirements, governmental red tape and restrictive land-use policies drive up the cost of housing and punish organizations that want to help out.

Years ago, I wrote about the way some cities had harassed poor people who lived in cheap motels, forcing them to move every 30 days to keep the motels from becoming permanent homes for the poor. No one wants to live in a crummy motel, but such shelter is better than living outside, near the train tracks. Ammiano ought to contact Anaheim’s Mayor Tom Tait, who worked out fair-minded rules to help these people.

By taking a trial lawyer’s approach to homelessness, activists fail to make distinctions between those who are on the streets due to mental and social problems and those who simply lack shelter. That approach does a disservice to everyone.

But I wonder if the activists’ goal is to help these troubled people or to posture, litigate and give grandiose speeches. In my view, the Homeless Bill of Rights is a microcosm of California’s political problem, and a reminder that the only real solutions to any real problem often are found outside the Legislature’s strange, insulated world.

Steven Greenhut is vice president of journalism at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Write to him at: steven.greenhut@franklincenterhq.org.

By Dave Roberts

There has been discussion by Sacramento politicians in the past year about the need to reform the California Environmental Quality Act in order to remove litigious roadblocks to new development, thereby boosting the state economy. But so far, the Democrats who control the California Legislature are moving in the opposite direction, making CEQA even more of a lawsuit magnet.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, won support last week from the Assembly Committee On Natural Resources for AB 953. It would expand CEQA’s mandate from the current standard of examining and mitigating the potential impacts of a project on the environment to include the potential impacts of the environment on the project.

The California Chamber of Commerce has dubbed AB 953 a “job killer.”

The Chamber asserts on its website that the bill:

“invites more litigation over CEQA projects by overturning a recent court decision and allowing project opponents to challenge environmental impact reports (EIRs) that don’t adequately evaluate and mitigate impacts related to conditions and physical features in the environment like sea-level rise and fault lines…. [It] dramatically expand[s] CEQA’s requirements at a time when the Legislature should be more appropriately focused on updating the 43-year-old law to address legitimate concerns about unnecessary litigation while reinforcing the existing statute’s core purpose of environmental protection and public review.”

Reversing a court ruling

That, of course, is not the way Ammiano sees his bill. He believes it corrects an unjust ruling in 2011 by the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles.

That case, Ballona Wetlands Land Trust vs. the City of Los Angeles, concerned an Environmental Impact Report challenge to the second phase of the Playa Vista development, which is in West Los Angeles two miles inland from the ocean. The project includes 2,600 homes, 50,000 square feet of office space, 195,875 square feet of retail space, 40,000 square feet of community-serving uses and 11 acres of parks and trails.

The development has cultural and historical significance. It’s a former Tongva Indian sacred burial site; about 1,000 Native American remains were exhumed during construction of phase one. It’s also where Howard Hughes had a private airfield and constructed his Spruce Goose at the end of World War II.

The Ballona Wetlands Land Trust, an environmental group seeking to protect the nearby wetlands area, challenged Los Angeles’ approval of the development on a number of environmental grounds. One of those was the contention that global warming would cause the sea level to rise so much that it could flood the La Playa development. It based that in large part on a 2009 report by the California Climate Change Center, “The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast.”

Los Angeles officials countered with an engineer’s report asserting that the CCC report represented an extreme worst case scenario, relied on a faulty methodology, and overstated the flood risk, according to the court ruling. The CCC report failed to account for the project site being two miles from the ocean and unlikely to be affected by wave action, elevated land between the project site and the coastline that would act as a barrier, and the topography of the project site and building elevations.

Effect of environment is irrelevant

But the significant issue, as far as the court is concerned, is that it’s irrelevant under CEQA whether purported sea level rise would or would not affect a proposed development.

“[T]he purpose of an EIR is to identify the significant effects of a project on the environment, not the significant effects of the environment on the project,” the appeals court ruled.

The court cited a couple of precedents. In 2009, the court rejected Long Beach’s attempt to challenge the construction of a new high school based in part on the contention that student health would be affected by emissions from nearby freeways. The court wrote, “We held that the EIR was not required to discuss the impacts on staff and student health of locating the project near the freeways.”

And in 2011, the court rejected a challenge to a Dana Point residential development that was based on the potential impact of noxious odors from a sewage plant on future residents.

Contrary to CEQA guidelines, which allow an EIR to analyze the effects of bringing people to hazardous areas, such as building a subdivision on an active fault line, floodplain or wildfire risk area, the court ruling states, “[W]e hold that an EIR need not identify or analyze such effects.”

And that’s what bothers Ammiano. He told the committee on April 15:

“CEQA is the primary state law requiring public officials to understand and consider the environmental consequences of their decisions before they make them. EIRs have historically taken into account the effects on the natural environment on the project as well as the effects of the project on the natural environment. The Ballona Wetlands decision unravels the specific purpose of CEQA to reduce the negative impacts of development on people and the environment. While we agree that reform must happen to CEQA, Ballona reforms just don’t make sense.

“AB 953 does not change CEQA. The Ballona Wetlands decision changed CEQA. And AB 953 re-establishes and clarifies what has been done for CEQA prior to that decision. Environmentally sound developers agree that fixing the Ballona decision is consistent with good planning principles, as developers don’t want to take the responsibility of building in a polluted air zone, a flood plain or coast line with measured sea level rise. AB 953 makes the process clearer, avoids costly litigation and protects people and the environment.”

Ammiano was supported by Roger Moore, an attorney who said he’s been litigating CEQA disputes in all parts of the state for 20 years. Moore asked:

“Should CEQA be understood to deprive decision makers and the public of information about dangers to health and safety stemming from locating the project at a dangerous site? Until recently the answer to that question has been a resounding no. And it remains that way under CEQA, except for the decision that Mr. Ammiano referred to. Because of this change, it is now essential to have a legislative recognition … that humans are a key part of the environment that is to be protected.”

Expanding CEQA will cut jobs

But Mira Guertin, representing the California Chamber of Commerce, countered that the proper place to consider the potential impacts from the environment on a proposed development is in the land use process before a project gets to the EIR stage. She said:

“Just to give you an example of how this works: When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, there was a big conversation that opened up about whether we wanted to rebuild the city where it is, knowing that it is below sea level and it’s going to be vulnerable to hurricanes like this in the future and all of the considerations that go along with that. That conversation happened, and there is no CEQA in Louisiana. So that conversation can continue to happen in California without making that conversation a part of CEQA.

“One of the reasons the business community wants CEQA reform is because increasingly CEQA is used as a tool to stop development or extract conditions that are not necessary to protect the environment. Those people could be competitors. They could be neighbors who just don’t want busier streets. They can be unions trying to extract contract concessions. Or even environmental groups who don’t believe in any development in the state.

“Expanding CEQA under 953 would give one more tool to those opponents to challenge any project, saying that the EIR did not consider every possible impact, didn’t consider the appropriate way of calculating sea level rise. And therefore they didn’t mitigate far enough, perhaps they didn’t implement enough mitigation measures. This will cause dramatic cuts to jobs, it will decrease development. And it will not do one thing to help the environment. For this reason we oppose AB 953 as a job killer.”

Won’t cure cancer

Also opposed was Cassie Gilson, representing the California Building Industry Association. She said:

“I say this only a little bit jokingly, but I think there is an attempt and people want CEQA to cure cancer and bring peace to the Middle East. Any time there is a shortcoming in anything, the idea is CEQA is where we have to put it in. But it is not by any means the only law we have to deal with. In fact, we’ve structured CEQA together with a very robust body of other laws that gives project proponents, whether its Caltrans or a home builder, a clear set of requirements. If you are building anything in the vicinity of an earthquake fault, here is what you have to do. If you have air emissions in areas of the state where there is significant air quality issues, here’s what we have to do.”

Gilson argued that the Ammiano’s bill would actually hurt California’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by discouraging development of infill lots in urban areas, forcing development to suburban and rural areas.

AB 953 was approved by the committee 5-3, and has been referred to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations. Similar legislation, SB 617, is scheduled to be considered by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on May 1.

By Dave Roberts

California Democrats are seeking to weaken the protection for business property in Proposition 13, the 1978 tax limitation measure passed by voters. If the Democrats are successful, it could result in an annual $10 billion business tax hike, and over five years a loss of nearly 400,000 jobs and a $72 billion hit to California’s economy, according to one study.

AB 188, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, requires that commercial properties be reassessed whenever there’s a 100 percent change in ownership of those properties.

Currently, business partners who purchase a property can avoid reassessment as long as none of the partners owns more than 50 percent of the property. Democrats consider that a loophole — and a potential cash cow for the state treasury if the loophole is closed.

Democratic resolution

One of the resolutions passed at last weekend’s state Democratic Convention in Sacramento pledges to revise Prop. 13:

“Whereas, Proposition 13, passed in 1978, is unfair in that it allows commercial property owners to avoid paying their fair share and has shifted the tax burden to residential property and away from business, including everyday homeowners and working families; and

“Whereas, the state of California continues to face chronic budget crises in large part because Proposition 13 has forced the state to rely on more volatile revenue sources than the property tax, like income taxes and sales taxes paid by working families that move in tandem with economic cycles, causing deficits and requiring cuts to vital services that grow our economy and thereby worsening economic downturns;

“Whereas, regularly reassessing non‐residential property would, according to an analysis of data provided by the California Board of Equalization, generate at least $6 billion in additional revenue for California, and shift the tax burden from homeowners, renters, and working families to corporations and commercial landholders;

“Therefore be it resolved, that the California Democratic Party supports commercial property tax reform that will require commercial properties to be reassessed regularly while maintaining residential property owners’ protections under Prop 13 ….”

Ammiano echoed those themes as he introduced his bill to the Assembly Committee On Revenue And Taxation on Monday.

“While teachers and police are being laid off and children are being denied access to critical medical care and struggling families are being forced to bear a larger tax burden, it is appropriate that we close loopholes such as this which benefit major corporations at the expense of both small businesses and the average Californian taxpayer,” he said.

Ammiano was backed by Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the liberal California Tax Reform Association. He said E&J Gallo used the loophole to avoid a property reassessment when it bought the Louis Martini winery in St. Helena in 2002.

“The Napa County assessor came out and said to the Assessors Association, ‘Shouldn’t we deal with this problem?’” Goldberg said. “And that’s what this bill does.”

Great Recession

Also supporting AB 188 was Christie Bouma, representing California Professional Firefighters. Many fire district budgets were hit hard by property tax reductions during the Great Recession.

“We protect homes and businesses,” she said. “In grandma’s home, she can’t sell her bathroom to someone and the living room to someone else and her family room to someone else, and avoid 100 percent change of ownership, but must instead suffer the assessment. I would suggest that since many fire protection agencies in the state and fire districts are almost 100 percent funded by property tax, they are getting choked off by these sorts of [commercial property] transactions. It’s a very small change that will allow them to not only protect these business properties that need to remain viable in their communities, but also grandma’s house.”

Exactly how much revenue would be raised by more frequent reassessments of commercial properties remains to be seen. It could be far less than the $6 billion annually that Democrats are salivating for. The Board of Equalization estimates that the annual property tax revenue increase associated with the new “change of ownership” rule would be $77 million per year, according to the bill’s analysis for the committee hearing.

“However, BOE acknowledged that estimating the revenue increase with any degree of certainty is difficult,” the analysis states. “Additionally, it does not know the number of such transactions that would be covered under this new definition in California.”

Study: significant, detrimental impact on economy

A Pepperdine University study released a year ago is closer to the Democrats’ estimate, predicting that a split-roll tax system that treats business properties differently from residential properties could bring in an extra $4-10 billion, with a best guess at $6 billion. If that occurs, it would be another devastating blow to California’s struggling economy, the study concludes:

“Increasing the taxes of businesses by $6 billion would result in lost economic output and decreased employment. The cost to the California economy of this property tax increase would total $71.8 billion dollars of lost output and 396,345 lost jobs over the first five years of a split roll property tax regime. These losses would be even greater in succeeding years.

“The introduction of a split roll property tax valuation system would result in increased instability for local government finances, as they would become more directly susceptible to the value gyrations of the real estate market. For example, in 2008‐09 when California property values faced the traumatic decline in the wake of the sub‐prime crisis and the market collapse (industrial and commercial values fell 6.5 percent), property taxes collected from these same properties actually rose 5.0 percent.

“A split roll property tax valuation system would also further undermine the attractiveness of the business climate in California. Because small businesses typically lease properties where the cost of property taxes is passed through to the lessee, this research concludes that the employment losses described above would be disproportionately concentrated in small businesses, and especially those owned by women and minorities.

“Overall, this study finds that a split roll property tax regime would have a significant and detrimental impact on the state’s economy, especially at a time when the California economy is struggling.”

Gina Rodriguez, representing the California Taxpayers Association, expanded on those points to the committee.

“The bill represents an erosion to the Prop. 13 protections that voters approved for all Californians almost 35 years ago,” she said. “This is inconsistent with the philosophy of Prop. 13, which is taxpayers’ collective response to dramatic increases in property taxes and which passed with 65 percent of voter.

“Beside capping the property tax rate, limiting the annual assessment increase and establishing vote thresholds, Prop. 13 also converted the property tax base from a market value system to an acquisition value system. With the acquisition value system, Prop. 13 removed much of the fluctuation of property tax revenue, creating a more stable revenue source for local government.

“Prop. 13 has been successful at what it promised to do. It prevented people from being taxed out of their homes and their businesses. And for the first time it gave all taxpayers a measure of certainty over their property tax.”

Response to Democratic arguments

Rodriguez responded to the Democrats’ arguments that Prop. 13 has hurt government revenues and shifted the tax burden from businesses to homeowners.

“Under Prop. 13, property taxes have been the most reliable tax in California, growing steadily year after year,” she said. “In fact, property taxes have exceeded growth in inflation and population combined. From 1979 to 2012, the average annual growth of assessed value for locally assessed businesses has outpaced the growth of homeowner-occupied properties 7.5 to 7.2 percent.”

One of the few bright spots in California’s sluggish economy has been the revival of the high-tech industry. But Kelly Hitt, representing Tech America, said that could be in jeopardy if AB 188 passes.

“The technology industry was born in California and we want to stay in California,” she said. “Our industry faces extreme competition and rapid technological advancements that result in compressed research cycles and product lives. In today’s fiscal climate, technology companies must compare their operational costs with other locations globally. Companies take several things into consideration when choosing where to expand. And Proposition 13 is one of the few certainties technology companies in California have when doing so. The technology industry is a bright spot in California’s economy. And we need to start playing offense to keep these companies and jobs here.”

AB 188 was sent to the committee’s suspense file, and will likely be voted on in May.

By Katy Grimes

Jumping on the anti-gun movement in the country, two of California anti-gun lawmakers will lead a hearing today about guns and violence. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, Chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, and Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, Chairwoman of the Senate Public Safety Committee, will be taking a look at gun violence and firearm law in California.

However, putting Ammiano and Hancock in charge of the gun and violence hearing is like having Lindsay Lohan lead an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and Tiger Woods in charge of sex addicts anonymous.

Ammiano was instrumental in getting rid of San Francisco’s High School competitive .22 cal rifle teams, and worked to put an end to the junior ROTC program in San Francisco’s High Schools. Ammiano supported the ban on allowing gun owners to carry an unloaded gun in public. “Whether a gun is loaded or not, it’s still an act of intimidation and bullying,” Ammiano said.

It was reported yesterday that Ammiano is about to introduce a bill to tighten gun-safety laws already in place by adding a safe-storage requirement when a person prohibited from gun possession is living in the home. Ammiano’s bill also would let the state Justice Department extend the state’s 10-day waiting period when necessary for background checks.

The East Bay Patch recently reported State Sen. Loni Hancock “said she hopes to follow the president’s lead at the state Capitol. ‘The president is setting the tone for the national conversation that has to take place.  I strongly agree with him that we need to take action in order to protect our children,’ said Hancock. ‘As someone who represents Oakland, I’ve seen the tragic consequences of gun violence – too many children are dying.'”

I’ll report later about this hearing.

By Dave Roberts

Thousands of San Francisco residents may be sucked into a green energy plan that will raise their electricity rates 77 percent without their knowledge or consent. Beginning next spring, half of the city’s 375,000 residential ratepayers will automatically be enrolled in CleanPowerSF — unless they take action to opt out of the program. Eventually the entire city will be enrolled in the program unless they choose to opt out.

City officials are hoping at least 90,000 households will choose to remain in the program — despite the 23 percent increase (an extra $18) on the average monthly PG&E bill, which includes electricity and gas. That could be a safe bet, because many liberal, wealthy San Franciscans will embrace the opportunity to boast that their power is coming from a clean, green, renewable energy source.

But many residents (perhaps tens of thousands) who could not care less where their energy comes from and may not be able to afford a 23 percent rate hike also may be included in the program, unaware that their energy plan has changed and that they have an option to get out of it. That possibility bothers three San Francisco supervisors, who offered an amendment to the plan at Tuesday’s meeting to help ensure it only includes willing participants. Their amendment was voted down 8-3.

“It smells of coercion,” said Supervisor Mark Farrell of the opt-out provision.

He acknowledged that the state law enabling the formation of a Community Choice Aggregation program requires that it can only be an opt-out situation instead of a voluntary opt in. State legislators were concerned that if such a program were voluntary it would not get enough participants to make it viable. If San Francisco’s program does not attract at least 90,000 participants, the city would be liable for the funding shortfall with Shell Energy, possibly as much as $15 million.

But Farrell believes the city could work around that constraint.

“To me this [should be] a volunteer program or we create a mechanism where we knew the people who are being offered CCA and are being asked to increase their energy rates had at least indicated they wanted to do so,” he said. “That to me is a big deal. At the end of the day it really comes down to the consumer. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do to foist onto consumers an increase of 20 to 30 percent higher energy rates in an opt-out program. If people want to spend more money … to buy green energy from CleanPowerSF, I think that is terrific and we should allow people the ability to do that. But to coerce them into doing it in an opt-out program … is the wrong approach, and something I can’t support.”

Rollout

Farrell was backed by Supervisor Carmen Chu, who offered an amendment requiring that the initial rollout would only encompass “those customers who have indicated a desire to be included in the initial marketing of the program.” Chu also offered an amendment that would cancel the program if not enough people expressed interest to make it financially viable.

Farrell, Chu and Sean Elsbernd, the three moderates on the mostly leftist Board of Supervisors, voted for the amendments. Scott Wiener was the only other supervisor to express any interest in making sure that unaware San Franciscans aren’t sucked into the rate hike.

“I think there are very good arguments on both sides of this,” said Wiener, who wanted more information on the impact of Chu’s amendments. “I don’t want to have something passed and signed into law that will cause (San Francisco Public Utility Commission officials) to spin around chasing their tails because ultimately the program doesn’t happen because we have inserted a poison pill. We know state law requires an opt out. They are suggesting a preliminary opt in that shows support before proceeding. My question is whether we are able to do that, to have some form of an opt in that precedes the opt out.”

Plans

PUC General Manager Ed Harrington, who postponed his retirement in order to shepherd CleanPowerSF to completion, responded that plans are already in place to achieve what Chu’s amendments are seeking to do, and that her amendments could in fact gum up the works.

“We’ve done extensive surveying already in terms of polling,” said Harrington. “We are only going and looking at places where a majority of people want to do it in the first place. We are not just randomly capturing people in the city where a majority may not want us. The problem that I see is that to be able to go out and have people sign up, I should be able to tell them the price. If I don’t know how many people are going to sign up or when they’re going to sign up, I can’t lock in the price until I sign the contract with Shell. It really harms the ability to have an intelligent conversation with people when you’re saying, ‘I don’t know what it is, but do you want it?’ It’s much more straightforward to say, ‘This is what it is, here’s your chance to make a choice.’”

Wiener made a motion to postpone the decision a week to allow time to figure out a way to make sure that only willing participants are signed up for the program. The motion was voted down 7-3. Wiener then joined the majority in voting down Chu’s amendments.

14 years in the works

Supervisor David Campos spearheaded the effort to approve the program, noting that the plan dates back 14 years when current state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, was a supervisor.

“It’s not as ambitious and aggressive a program as many people wanted,” said Campos. “But it’s a program that at the end assures success and viability. At the end of the day it’s really about providing consumers a choice. It’s about making sure that ratepayers in San Francisco have the opportunity to not only have clean energy but to have a meaningful choice, to make sure there are other players in the business of providing energy beyond the utility [PG&E] that has had a monopoly for so long.”

Harrington pointed out that San Francisco has a goal of reducing carbon emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. The city is currently in the process of spending $90 million for solar projects that will provide greenhouse gas reduction equivalent to fewer than 7,000 homes. CleanPowerSF will expand that to 90,000 homes for just $19.5 million, most of which won’t be spent unless the program falls short of the 90,000 signups.

“There’s nothing else anyone has even thought of that has that kind of dramatic impact in San Francisco of such a small dollar amount,” said Harrington. “It’s an incredibly efficient way of spending your money.”

But the clean energy program may not be as clean and wonderful as it’s been touted, according to an SF Weekly article. A city controller’s report pointed out that city agencies will be spending millions of dollars more for energy under CleanPowerSF, and that will likely result in reduced city services and jobs.

In addition, the program doesn’t guarantee that 100 percent of the city’s energy will be coming directly through a pipeline from a wind farm or solar array. The Shell contract allows the company to obtain energy from some of the same sources as PG&E (which is doing so at much less cost), including coal and gas. Energy could also come from burning methane from landfills, sewage treatment plants and feedlots — renewable, but not exactly clean.

CleanPowerSF is not yet a done deal. Mayor Ed Lee shares Farrell and Chu’s concern about the opt-out provision, and he may veto the legislation. On Tuesday the board had the eight votes necessary to over-ride a veto. It remains to be seen whether those eight votes will hold after the public becomes aware that they may be facing a 23 percent rate hike next year.