Advocacy Alerts

Governor Gavin Newsom this week signed a bill package providing $6.1 billion in tax relief, tax credits and grants for small businesses hurt by the pandemic and extending COVID-19 paid sick leave for workers.

David G. Ackerman, former executive vice president and chief lobbyist for the California Chamber of Commerce, passed away recently. He was 75.

Momentum is gaining to qualify the California Fair Pay and Employer Accountability Act of 2022 for the November ballot. The initiative’s campaign reported reaching 25% of signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot.

Two state privacy laws — one in effect since 2018 and the other taking effect in 2023 — require companies to adequately train employees who may receive consumer inquiries.

The Legislature will take its first actions on Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2022 budget and policy proposals this week and next, after negotiating a package deal to reduce the tax bite on employers and implement a second year of pandemic-specific sick leave, which includes improvements to last year’s sick leave mandate.

The California Chamber of Commerce has sent a letter of concern to the California Congressional Delegation on the economic consequences of recent federal proposals aimed at the technology sector and several of the nation’s largest employers. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a meeting about the proposals on February 3.

The California Chamber of Commerce will be presenting a virtual seminar on February 24 titled “The California Privacy Rights Act: Implementing a Compliance Program in a Rapidly Evolving Data Privacy Landscape.”

The California Chamber of Commerce and a broad-based coalition of employer organizations are strongly supporting Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal to help reduce the record debt in the state’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) Fund. More than 60 statewide business organizations and local chambers of commerce, representing tens of thousands of employers with hundreds of thousands of workers, are urging the Legislature to adopt this proposal.

The need to standardize data to solve global supply chain issues has been a consistent theme at meetings to date of a maritime data initiative led by Federal Maritime Commissioner Carl Bentzel.

Three California Chamber of Commerce job killer bills, including one that would have raised taxes by more than $160 billion annually to fund a single-payer health care system, were stopped in the state Legislature this week and are likely dead for the year.

Note: With this article, the California Chamber of Commerce begins a series of profiles of member companies that are contributing to the state’s economic strength and ability to stay competitive in a global economy. Company leaders look both to their history and what’s ahead. As Gregory S. Bielli, president and chief executive officer of Tejon Ranch Company, comments, “For nearly 180 years, Tejon Ranch has played a vital role in California and is positioned and ready to play an even more important one in the state’s future.” Visit www.calchamber.com/californiaworks to learn more about this series and read future profiles.

Brenda Bass has joined the California Chamber of Commerce as a policy advocate specializing in water supply and storage issues.